A formal complaint was filed on 11 May 2010 by the Rachad movement with the UN Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression, concerning censorship of the movement's website (www.rachad.org), including its online television site Rachad TV (tv.rachad.org).

The Algerian government had decided, without any valid reason nor advance notice, to censor the Rachad website starting 1 January 2010. Since this date the site has been inaccessible within Algeria.

This act of censorship, coming from another age in defiance of national and international laws that impose obligations on the Algerian state, is part of a policy aimed at suppressing any dissenting voice (person or organisation) that advocates for the effective exercise of the fundamental rights of Algerian citizens. After the political parties, the press, the unions, the human rights activists and more generally civil associations, the Bouteflika regime is now attacking the Internet, bringing Algeria into the very select club of countries that censor the Internet.

The question of censorship of the Rachad movement website has also been brought up in the Alternative Report on the 3rd and 4th Reports of the Algerian Government on the Application of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, submitted to the UN on 4 April 2010 along with the National Independent Union of Public Administration Personnel (SNAPAP), the International Committee in Support of Independent Unions in Algeria (CISA), and the Hoggar Institute (1).

In its final observations, made public on the 21 of this month, the UN Committee on Economic and Social Rights has already drawn attention to the many worrying issues in Algeria at the socioeconomic and cultural levels, notably general corruption, unemployment, indecently low salary levels, housing shortages, serious problems in education and health, the problems of internally displaced people, the unequal distribution of the national wealth, etc.

The Rachad Movement, for its part, will continue to use all legitimate means available to combat the censorship of its site in order to re-establish its right to make its voice, and the voices of all free people of our country, heard.

Secretariat of the Rachad Movement
28 May 2010

(1) http://www2.ohchr.org/english/bodies/cescr/docs/ngos/Alternatif-Algerie-SNAPAP-CISA-Hoggar.pdf
(2) http://www2.ohchr.org/english/bodies/cescr/docs/co/E.C.12.DZA.CO.4_AUV.doc